GAINESVILLE, Fla. - After Florida's basketball team failed to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 10 years yesterday, coach Billy Donovan took action.

Today, he kicked his players out of their plush locker room and barred them from the team's high-end facilities, and the squad is practicing elsewhere.

"It's something he's been talking about all year," freshman guard Jai Lucas said. "I guess he just feels that (the loss) hasn't touched us enough. Now he's saying this is his way of touching us and getting us motivated."

After back-to-back national titles, UF lost all five starters and one of its top backups off those teams, virtually starting over this season. Needing wins to secure a NCAA bid, UF lost its last four games.

Florida (21-11) will host San Diego State (20-12) in the opening round of the NIT at 9 p.m. Wednesday. In the meantime ... it's a little cold out there.

"We're not outside, we're not in a bad environment where we're going to get hurt or anything," Lucas said of workouts. "We've been all over the place. We've been (to the O'Connell Center), we've been to some other places."

Florida used a practice facility at the arena where it played games prior to the construction of the school's current basketball building. It's much more Spartan and uncomfortable.

"I think probably in some respects the confetti is still falling down around them (from last year's national title celebration)," Donovan said. "I think that when you have great, great success like we've had I think it's very, very easy to become complacent and to lose sight of how good things are around here and to have an attitude of, 'I'm at Florida. This is just what's going to happen.' ... It's not these guys' fault. They walked into this. They walked into what happened.

"They got a facility that the administration has invested a lot in. It's one of the best in the country. They've got a massage therapist to make sure they're OK after games. They've got a private plane that they take to games. The meals that they eat. All those things, these guys came here and went right to the penthouse."

Lucas took the punishment in stride.

"It's not embarrassing, it's just something we have to overcome," he said. "It's more embarrassing not to hear your name called to make the NCAA Tournament. We don't deserve to be in the penthouse. We haven't done anything to be in the penthouse yet. We're working our way up."

He added, "This is something I think is a good idea. This is the best thing we needed."

Donovan felt perhaps his players had "a level of entitlement.

"It's no different than a similar situation that I went through after we went to the 2000 national championship game. We ended up going through five years getting knocked out in the first or second (round). There's a process that these kids are going to have to go through and they're going to have to figure it out."

Apparently without their practice clothes or facility for a while.

"(Donovan) said we've got to earn what we have," said freshman guard Nick Calathes, who was named the Southeastern Conference Newcomer of the Year by the Associated Press on Monday. "We've got everything here: our own practice facility, however-million-dollar practice facility. He wants to show us how hard (you have to work) to get to the highest level.

"That'll get us going. I think we've got something to prove in the NIT and I think we've got to come together as a team and keep working hard," Calathes said. "He's really going to make us earn it. I like that. I don't see that as a problem at all. I think it will help us in the long run."